Spend too much time in the kitchen cooking them! But hey, it’s autumn so being in a warm kitchen making yummy-smelling food which might even keep you fed over winter isn’t so bad…
If these ideas still aren’t enough to help you get through all those apples (and I would understand if that’s the case – every time I cook up a bag of them, it seems another friend appears to give me more…) – there’s even more recipes on my post about using up pears from last year, including pear bread, pear cake, poached pears, pear sauce, pear butter and pear chutney.
Almost all recipes for pears can be used equally well with apples (or even quince if you’re lucky enough to have access to some) – just be aware of adjusting the sweetness of the dish if your apples are tart or cooking a bit longer for apples (more for cookers and less for eaters) and quite a bit longer for quince as they’re sturdier fruit than pears. Happy autumn cooking!
My top five recipes for apples:
- Apple crumble cake: A simple way to make crumble portable – make it into cake and bring to a party or just devour square by square at home. (Or if you’re making traditional crumble try this lovely topping – adding oats and nuts to the flour and brown sugar adds extra texture and flavour).
- Tarte tatin: This is one of my favourite desserts, combining those classic flavours of fruit with caramel, and much easier to make than you might think. Whether you make the pastry or buy it, just cook the sugar and butter nice and slowly to make the caramel. There’s no need for a special pan either, you can just cook the fruit and caramel on the stove and then pour into any circular baking dish and top with the pastry. It’s lovely with apples (particularly with the firmer cooking varieties) or pears or added spices like cardamom or vanilla.
- Fruit leather: This is my favourite apple recipe find for this year and a great way to use up large quantities of fruit in one go. This starts with stewing the apples (or a mix of apples and pears) until they have broken down into a sort of apple sauce. The sauce is then baked in a thin layer, in a low oven until it turns into a chewy, natural fruit snack.
- Spiced squash and apple soup: I love any slightly savoury twist on apples, like eating applesauce with potato pancakes or ‘latkes’, or even grating them into a slaw.
- Preserves: chutney is the obvious choice, and this apple and pear chutney is a tasty one, but there’s also apple and chilli jam, or even apple or pear wine which is on my list for next year!
Great ideas for too many apples or too many pears. I have too many of both at the moment. thanks